March 12, 2018

Trump is unorthodox. Other Presidents would have not immediately accepted a meeting with the North Korean dictator. The conventional wisdom is that this would be elevating Kim Jong Un's status on the world stage. So what? The issue isn't about Un's status . The issue is about peace on the Korean peninsula.

Trump is unconventional. This lets him just do the right thing sometimes without a lot of lawyerly ifs, ases and wherefores preliminarily. If Trump can strike a deal for peace, let his advisors fret and fume. They want the status quo and the status quo is war. Unfortunately for them, Trump as President has a lot of power. They can't rein him in if he doesn't want to be reined in. Just maybe he will actually meet with Un and just maybe they will work out a peace deal. Just maybe Trump will do the right thing.

Just think. Dennis Rodman could be appointed ambassador to North Korea. He seems to be the only American that gets along with Un. Trump is right. The conventional approach has not worked for over half a century. If Trump wants to make peace, let him do it. Whether or not Un's status is elevated is irrelevant. The lawyerly approach is irrelevant.

It's unconscionable that North and South Korea sit there in a state of war because the US invaded. And to what end? What did the US accomplish there? It prevented Chinese communism from taking over the peninsula? You think? We invaded Vietnam for the same reason. That was a debacle. China is now our biggest trading partner. China's influence in the world is on the rise with its Belt and Road initiative. Now we are trading partners with them, by the way, a communist country. The US has fucked up so many times it's unbelievable. I won't even mention the invasion of Iraq. Yes, let's get more women in there as Congress persons. Maybe they will have an unconventional approach as well.

As a final note, the kids are telling the NRA to go fuck themselves. Good for them. We don't have to stand for a country where Wayne LaPierre is the dictator. Let's go the unconventional route for once and create a sane society.

March 10, 2018

Trump agreed to sit down with Kim Jong Un much to the dismay and chagrin of his advisors who say you just can't do that without a lot of preliminary fol de rol. Well, Trump isn't one to do things the conventional way or to go the conventional route. Of course he can always change his mind, but there is a chance that the meeting could go something like this.

Kim Jong Un: You know we never had a peace treaty from the Korean War. Technically, we're still at war. President Moon of South Korea wants to make peace with us

Trump: You know, it's ridiculous that the US has never allowed South Korea to make peace with you. Blame that on all my Democrat predecessors. Obama, Clinton, the whole lot of them. Also the military-industrial complex and the Generals, they never want to make peace. They're in the business of war. Their paycheck is conditional on war. When peace breaks out, they don't get paid.

Kim John Un: Then we're on the same page. We make peace with you. We make peace with President Moon, and finally the Korean War is over and we can get on with our business. We even build Trump hotel in North Korea.

Trump: Yeah, that would be a great first step to cement our friendship. By the way, could you loan my son-in-law, Jared Kushner a few million. He would like to build a few apartments in Korea as well.

KimJong Un: We could work that out. Yea! No more North Korea and South Korea. We are just one united Korea. Just like you. No red states and blue states. Just one United States.

Of course, Trump is unorthodox, but he always defers to those wiser and cooler heads around him that counsel him that you just can't do that. You just can't go and make peace with Kim Jong Un. He's our deadly enemy. You must make him unilaterally disarm first. He must give up his nuclear program. Making peace is not all that simple. There are a lot of whatifs, whereases and non sequiturs involved.

Trump, the deal maker, could pull off one of the biggest deals in history. It could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

February 13, 2018

This would be the greatest thing that happened in the world since 1989 when the Berlin wall came down. If the two Koreas got together, it would literally change the whole world situation. The US would be forced to acknowledge the loss of a puppet in South Korea. Without the US umbrella and military expenditures in southeast Asia, the US might have a little more money to actually rebuild its own infrastructure. Ha. Ha. The thought of reducing the military budget if peace broke out between the Koreas is actually risible. The whole economy, which is predicated on military expenditures, would collapse.

Although peace between the two Koreas would be the best thing that would happen to the world in a long time, the US would lose influence in that part of the world. So from the US perspective peace between the two Koreas would be a disaster, especially because a unified Korea would probably fall within the Chinese sphere. US prestige and influence would be diminished. The US would have to get used to the idea that it can't boss other countries around. They would have to accept the idea that a clown in the White House will cause other countries to realign with China or, God forbid, Russia.

China's Belt and Road initiative will create the infrastructure that will facilitate the reuniting of Korea. The US has nothing to offer except its military. Obviously, President Moon of South Korea would rather be friends with a nuclear power just a few miles away than with a belligerent US whose President is threatening war with a country right next door. It makes more geopolitical sense. If Trump destroys North Korea, South Korea is a goner too.

The US has relied on sanctions to control other countries, but other countries are getting around US sanctions. What are sanctions anyway? They just amount to denying those countries stuff that has to be traded in US dollars. Other forms of currency and methods of trading are being developed which will make US sanctions irrelevant. Oil, which has only been traded in dollars, will soon be traded in other currencies. The US will lose its ability to boss other nations around when that happens.

The world is changing. With Trump, the US is close to becoming the world's pariah (the only nation to drop out of the Paris global warming treaty) while still trying to demonize other nations like Russia and Iran. It dare not demonize China any more. China is too powerful, and there is too much trading between the two countries.

We made a total mess out of Vietnam 50 years ago and now Vietnam is a normal country and a US trading partner. Surely the same thing could happen with a unified Korea. In 50 years people will wonder what all the fuss was about. After all the US doesn't get all paranoid about other nuclear countries like Pakistan. A reunified and nuclear Korea could become just another US trading partner and take its place among the normalized countries of the world.

January 12, 2018

President Trump tasked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with brokering peace in the Middle East, in particular between Israel and Palestine. Kushner's idea of a peace policy was to take millions of dollars from Israel and in return give them everything they wanted vis a vis Palestine. Jared Kushner’s companies received a $30 million infusion of cash from an Israeli insurance company, Menora Mivtachim. He received no such money from Palestine. As an orthodox Jew who had contributed to pro-Israeli causes, it's a stretch of the imagination that Kushner could approach the peace process between Israel and Palestine with an even hand or with an open mind.

The Menora transaction is the latest financial arrangement that has surfaced between Mr. Kushner’s family business and Israeli partners, including one of the country’s wealthiest families and a large Israeli bank that is the subject of a United States criminal investigation.

Kushner, in particular, seems to be strapped for cash. A flagship property, 666 Fifth Ave, New York, has a $1.2 billion mortgage due in February 2019. And there is likely no American money available for refinancing. Kushner has been scouring the globe for money. And he has been selling hundreds of apartments to raise funds, as there is little equity left in his buildings as they are already collateral to numerous loans

So Kushner and his real estate wheelings and dealings need money. Israel has money. Israel wants peace with Palestine (on its own terms, of course). What could go wrong with that? Foreign policy conducted the Ayn Rand way which is ... what's in it for me? You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. You pay off my mortgage, and we'll have it arranged for the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The whole thing stinks. It seems as if the Trump family is profiting from their role as First Family as Trump seeks to profit from his role as President of the United States. Why else would one want to assume the role of the most powerful man in the world if one could not profit from it? That's the Ayn Rand way. A self seeking powerful man who is only concerned about his profits and views all foreign and domestic policy through that prism. At least Trump wants to share the profits with his family.

As has been pointed out, Kushner broke no ethics rules since they only apply to the situation where Kushner might get his hands on Federal money. Side deals are OK. Think of it as lobbying by foreign countries to get the foreign policy they want from the US with a little vigorish on the side. How else to profit from the deal? Federal ethics laws need to be reevaluated. Sad!

White House Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner speaks during a conversation with Haim Saban at Saban Forum, December 3, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is once more under intense scrutiny after new reporting revealed that his lucrative financial relationship with Israel has deepened even as his influence over U.S. Middle East policy—from his leading role in Trump's effort to "derail" a U.N. vote against Israel to his sway over the president's Jerusalem move—has continued to grow.

"There has indeed been clear collusion proven between pre-inaugurated Trump and a foreign power—with Israel, to sink Obama's U.N. policy on settlements." —Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

According to a report published Sunday by the New York Times, Kushner's real estate firm received a $30 million investment from Menora Mivtachim—one of Israel's largest financial institutions—just before he accompanied Trump on his first diplomatic trip to Israel last year.

"The deal, which was not made public, pumped significant new equity into 10 Maryland apartment complexes controlled by Mr. Kushner's firm," the Times notes. "While Mr. Kushner has sold parts of his business since taking a White House job last year, he still has stakes in most of the family empire—including the apartment buildings in and around Baltimore."

While Menora executive Ran Markman insisted that Kushner's role in directing America's Middle East policy "didn't make us do the deal," critics raised pointed questions about the ethics of the transaction.

Describing Kushner as "the worst and most oppressive kind of slum lord," The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald asked, "Are you comfortable with having Jared Kushner be the beneficiary of huge amounts of Israeli financing at the same time he's overseeing U.S. foreign policy on Israel?"

As Jared Kushner oversees US policy on Israel, Israeli financiers are pouring huge - and desperately needed - amounts of cash into his cash-starved businesses https://t.co/4R7GXNp4H7

And the Menora deal is just one component of Kushner's sprawling and complex financial ties with Israel, the Times makes clear.

In April, the Times reported that the Kushners had teamed up with at least one member of Israel’s wealthy Steinmetz family to buy nearly $200 million of Manhattan apartment buildings, as well as to build a luxury rental tower in New Jersey...

Mr. Kushner's company has also taken out at least four loans from Israel's largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, which is the subject of a Justice Department investigation over allegations that it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes.

The firm also bought several floors of the former New York Timesheadquarters building in Manhattan from Lev Leviev, an Israeli businessman and philanthropist.

And the Kushner family's foundation continues to donate money to a settlement group in the West Bank.

"No one could ever imagine this scale of ongoing business interests, not in a local peanut farm or a hardware store but sprawling global businesses that give the president and his top adviser personal economic stakes in an astounding number of policy interests," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.

The Times report comes just days after the Wall Street Journalrevealed that the Trump transition team's failed effort to undermine a 2016 United Nations Security Council resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank—led in part by Kushner and encouraged by Israeli government officials—"was wider and more intense than has been reported."

According to the Journal, Kushner "directed" former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to pressure foreign governments—including Russia—to delay or defeat the resolution. Flynn admitted to lying to the FBI about the effort last month.

Greenwald concluded in a tweet on Sunday that the Trump transition team's campaign to defeat the U.N. resolution at Israel's behest lays bare a fact that is "uncomfortable for many."

January 03, 2018

Heather Nauert, spokesperson for the State Department said yesterday in response to a question about regime change, " No, I think what the President is talking about is exactly what the Iranian people are saying, that they want change. They want the government to start taking care of them. We’ve heard from some of the protesters their concerns about that nation’s money being spent on exploits in other countries – Syria, Iran’s support for Hizballah, Iran’s support for weapons being sent around the world – as opposed to spending that money on its own people. So I think when the President calls for change, he’s calling for the Iranian Government to make changes for its own people and the same thing that the Iranian people are calling for."

How ironic? The fact that she attributes virtue to a people who want the government to take care of them while here in the good ole US of A, you'd never hear that sentiment espoused that people just want the government to take care of them. People are supposed to take care of themselves, not ask the government to take care of them. And about the nation's money "being spent on exploits in other countries," if that's not the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is. The good ole US of A spends a trillion dollars a year on military exploits in other countries. The US maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined. I don't think Iran has any.

Is the US government taking care of us, the American people instead of spending its money on military exploits around the world? I don't think so. In fact Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, has plans to cut social security, medicare and medicaid because the government doesn't have enough money to pay for them after giving tax cuts to the rich and of course to spend a trillion dollars a year on "military exploits." Isn't it about time to stop being a friggin' hypocrite, Heather Nauert, suggesting that the Iranian government should stop its military exploits and take care of its people while the US does just the opposite?

December 27, 2017

There is no end to American ingenuity when it comes to creating enemies. The US invasion of Iraq under George W Bush created the space and the vacuum for ISIS to form. But wait a minute. What would they do for weapons? No problem. The US will provide them. Barack Obama wanted to get rid of Assad in Syria so badly that he invited ISIS to come in and overthrow him. By purchasing “large numbers” of European arms and ammunition and then diverting them to nonstate actors in Syria without notifying the sellers, the U.S. reportedly “violated the terms of sale and export agreed between weapon exporters...and recipients."

The Syrian army discovered warehouses filled with US weapons left behind by ISIS as they retreated. The US didn't know how to extricate itself after Obama drew a "red line in the sand" and dared Assad to cross over it. Obama's stupidity rivaled even that of George W Bush who went to war with Iraq based on a lie. The various branches of government including the CIA totally supported Bush in that decision. Then along comes Obama and Hillary who wanted to prove their hawkish mettle by removing dictators from Egypt, Syria and Libya. The sole accomplishment of Obama's soaring rhetoric was to further mire the US in the Middle East and lead to the destruction of young lives and dreams of people who wanted nothing more than to live like their perception of European and American lives.

"The strategy that we are using now -- airstrikes, (U.S.) Special Forces and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country -- that is how we'll achieve a more sustainable victory," Obama said in a 2015 speech . "And it won't require us sending a new generation of Americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil." Obama and Hillary had staked their reputations on getting rid of Assad. It was sort of a prerequisite for Hillary's 2016 Presidential campaign. They were in the business of spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Well, at least, she came, saw and conquered Gaddafi.

However, the Middle East didn't want their damn freedom and democracy, especially when it was being imposed on them by America. They couldn't not thank us enough. The US should have just stayed out of their business. But that's not what meddlesome US Presidents and Secretarys of State do. They have to prove they are tough, and besides what else are you going to do with trillions of dollars of US armaments and war making materials? Let it rust? No, American Presidents have to get some use out of it.

Fancying themselves to be the world's policeman and a beacon of freedom and democracy, the US goes to war to bring about peace. A good war will hallow any cause, Nietzsche said, and the cause is freedom and democracy. We Americans think we know better how Middle Easterners should live, under what conditions they should live and who their benefactors shall be ...(us). Bush and Obama thought that they would thank us some day for our bravery in getting involved in their affairs. NOT.

Nikki Haley, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks on the floor of the General Assembly on December 21, 2017 in New York City. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

In a speech one critic likened to "a bully throwing a temper tantrum on the world stage," U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday slammed U.N. member states for refusing to line up in support of President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and threatened to withdraw funding if America continues to be "disrespected."

"The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation," Haley declared in a speech at U.N. headquarters in New York. "When a nation is singled out for attack in this organization that nation is disrespected. What's more, that nation is asked to pay for the privilege of being disrespected. In the case of the U.S. we are asked to pay more than anyone else for that dubious privilege."

Despite Haley's threats—and her complaint that the U.S. isn't seeing sufficient return on its "investment"—the U.N. General Assembly voted 128-9 to declare Trump's Jerusalem move "null and void." Guatemala, Togo, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, and Palau voted with the U.S and Israel against the resolution. Canada was among the 35 nations that abstentions.

The General Assembly's overwhelming rebuke of the Trump administration came just a day after Haley warned in a Facebook post that "yes, the U.S. will be taking names" during the vote.

In a statement following Thursday's vote, Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, applauded the 128 nations that "stood up to U.S. pressure, which could not obscure the urgency of speaking out against the recklessness and injustice of declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel."

Nikki Haley misrepresenting what the people of the US want in a UN speech that sounds like it was written by Tony Soprano. JVP statement to follow soon. pic.twitter.com/AO8E5EGRDO

"Despite threats from the Trump administration, the U.N. General Assembly vote today showed once again that the U.S. and Israel are increasingly isolated from the global consensus regarding Israel’s appalling disregard for Palestinian rights," Vilkomerson concluded.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on May 23, 2017. (Photo: U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/flickr/cc)

With his usual braggadocio and familiar hypocrisy, President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that his official announcement for the U.S. to recognize unified Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to move its embassy there was a gesture of a "peace," while critics at home and across the world decried the move as a destructive and unjust decision that will unleash more violence.

The announcement, said Raed Jarrar, Amnesty International USA's Middle East advocacy director, is both "reckless and provocative." Trump's decision, he said, shows "yet again his blatant disregard for international law" and "further undermines the human rights of the Palestinian people and is likely to inflame tensions across the region."

Trump announces Jerusalem the capital of Israel while saying he is committed to helping achieve peace. These are completely incompatible

"No country in the world recognizes Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem, making the decision to confer U.S. recognition deeply troubling" Jarrar added.

International law sees East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory, and no other country has an embassy in Jerusalem. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed that having Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Palestine was necessary to secure a two-state solution.

November 14, 2017

First Trump took the US out of the Paris climate agreement. Now he's taking the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12 nation agreement that now the other 11 nations will pursue without US involvement, just as the other nations of the world will pursue the Paris climate agreement without US involvement. The US is the only nation in the world not to be a member of the Paris agreement. So the US is effectively ceding world leadership to China.

President Xi of China has an ambitious plan - the Belt and Road initiative - that will link the Eurasian and African land masses together for the purposes of economic development and trade. While Trump's America Firstism will only make the US a backwater in retreat from engagement with the rest of the world, Xi is an active globalist, placing the world's second largest economy on the road to world leadership. While the US has the world's largest military-industrial complex and seeks to dominate and intimidate the rest of the world by force of arms, China is setting out on a peaceful course of world infrastructure development, something the US cannot even accomplish in the US.

World leadership will eventually go to China based on peaceful development and cooperation with the world's largest contiguous land mass while the US seeks to dominate by means of its military prowess. Economic development will trump military force, something more promising in the long run for a peaceful, cooperative planet. The US will be left to dominate in its sphere of influence - North and South America. China is ceding the US that. However, the US dollar will no longer be the world's reserve currency. That means that the US will no longer be in the position of putting America First. America will not be in a position to demand top priority.

Under Trump America has already become the laughing stock of the world. World leaders have lost their respect for a country that could have elected such a buffoon. The West under US leadership has completely unhinged the Middle East unleashing terrorism under groups such as Al Qaeda, ISIL and al Shebaab that didn't exist before George W Bush's lies that led to the Iraq invasion. Obama and Hillary didn't help the situation any - in fact they made it worse - by their encouragement of the Arab Spring and their take down of Gaddafi. As a result you have the complete destabilization of the Middle East and the European refugee crisis. The US has accomplished only negative results with its foreign policy since 9/11.

"We all want our children to grow up healthy, to have a good education, have decent jobs, drink clean water and breathe clean air, and to live in peace," Sanders says. "That’s what being human is about." (Photo: Bernie Sanders/Facebook)

Common Dreams Editor's Note: The following are the prepared remarks for a speech delivered today, Thursday September 21, by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as the 58th Green Foundation Lecture at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The speech will also be live streamed here (and below).

Let me begin by thanking Westminster College, which year after year invites political leaders to discuss the important issue of foreign policy and America’s role in the world. I am honored to be here today and I thank you very much for the invitation.

"Foreign policy is directly related to military policy and has everything to do with almost 7,000 young Americans being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tens of thousands coming home wounded in body and spirit from a war we should never have started. That’s foreign policy. And foreign policy is about hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan dying in that same war."

One of the reasons I accepted the invitation to speak here is that I strongly believe that not only do we need to begin a more vigorous debate about foreign policy, we also need to broaden our understanding of what foreign policy is.

So let me be clear:

Foreign policy is directly related to military policy and has everything to do with almost 7,000 young Americans being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tens of thousands coming home wounded in body and spirit from a war we should never have started. That’s foreign policy. And foreign policy is about hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan dying in that same war.

Foreign policy is about U.S. government budget priorities. At a time when we already spend more on defense than the next 12 nations combined, foreign policy is about authorizing a defense budget of some $700 billion, including a $50 billion increase passed just last week.

Watch the speech:

Meanwhile, at the exact same time as the president and many of my Republican colleagues want to substantially increase military spending, they want to throw 32 million Americans off of the health insurance they currently have because, supposedly, they are worried about the budget deficit. While greatly increasing military spending they also want to cut education, environmental protection and the needs of children and seniors.

Foreign policy, therefore, is remembering what Dwight D. Eisenhower said as he left office: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

And he also reminded us that: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway…”

August 14, 2017

Kim Jung Un has one and only one friend who is an American: Dennis Rodman, pro basketball player, arguably the best rebounding forward in NBA history. Maybe Trump should send him on a diplomatic mission to North Korea. He has been palsy walsy with Kim in the past. In 2013 Rodman went to North Korea to promote basketball and met Kim. He later said Kim was "a friend for life" and suggested that President Obama pick up the phone and call Kim since they were both basketball fans. Basketball diplomacy?

In July, 2013, Rodman told Sports Illustrated: "My mission is to break the ice between hostile countries. Why it’s been left to me to smooth things over, I don’t know. Dennis Rodman, of all people. Keeping us safe is really not my job; it’s the black guy’s [Obama's] job. But I’ll tell you this: If I don’t finish in the top three for the next Nobel Peace Prize, something’s seriously wrong."

On September 3, 2013, Rodman flew to Pyongyang for another meeting with Kim Jong-un. Rodman said that Kim has a daughter and that he is a "great dad". Rodman also noted that he planned to train the North Korea national basketball team. Rodman stated that he is "trying to open Obama's and everyone's minds" and encouraged Obama to reach out to Kim Jong-un.

Could encouraging Kim to start a national basketball team end the ice cold, prickly relationship between the US and North Korea? It could happen. Worth a try. If that happens, Dennis Rodman should get the Nobel prize.

February 15, 2017

Why did Trump try to impose tighter vetting on 7 nations in the Middle East without including Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Could it be that it's because Saudi Arabia which is a hotbed of terrorism is also an ally of the US and an enemy of Iran? Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Osama bin Laden was a Saudi. The machete wielding attacker at the Louvre recently was Egyptian. Neither Egypt nor Pakistan nor Afghanistan were included on the so-called President's list. Pakistan harbored bin Laden. Afghanistan is the home of the Taliban. If Trump had wanted to keep terrorists out of the US, surely he should have included these countries in his ban. But terrorism is more about US alliances than it is about morality or human rights.

"Since 9/11, no one has been killed in this country in a terrorist attack by anyone who emigrated from any of the seven countries," added William C. Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University College of Law. The large majority of jihadists who have carried out attacks in the US have been US citizens or legal residents.

What about "extreme vetting" for gun purchasers? Every day in the US on average 32 people are murdered with guns. 58 kill themselves and 216 people are shot and survive. But that's OK; it's just Americans killing each other. That's their Second Amendment right. They're not being killed by foreigners who have no Second Amendment rights. No background checks required.

Some History About the US and Saudi Arabia

US ties with Saudi Arabia run deep. US businesses have been involved in Saudi Arabia's oil industry since 1933, when Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) won a concession to explore in eastern Saudi Arabia and discovered oil in 1938. Before that who knew Saudi Arabia had oil? It was discovered by an American corporation!

The Arabian American Oil Company, or Aramco, established by Standard Oil and three partners—who would later become Texaco, Exxon, and Mobil—discovered the kingdom's reserves in 1944 and made the country the world's largest oil exporter. Saudi Arabia gradually bought out foreign shareholders by 1980, and the company is now known as Saudi Aramco, but US energy companies maintained business interests in Saudi Arabia. Chevron, Dow Chemical and ExxonMobil continue to be involved in refining and petrochemical ventures.

Despite all the mutual oil ventures between the US and Saudi Arabia, the latter country has harbored a vicious form of Islam know as Wahhabism which preaches the destruction of the west including the US. America's seventy-year alliance with the kingdom has been reappraised as a ghastly mistake, a selling of the soul, a gas-addicted alliance with death, a veritable deal with the devil. According to a 2009 US State Department communication by Hillary Clinton, United States Secretary of State, (disclosed as part of the Wikileaks US 'cables leaks' controversy in 2010) "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide".

Human Rights Violations in Saudi Arabia Kept Hush Hush

Human rights violations run rampant in Saudi Arabia, but nary a word about them in the Hypocritical Halls of Congress or the White House. Public beheadings are de rigueur according to Sharia law. Newsweek reports:

Yet, for all the outrage these [ISIS] executions have engendered the world over, decapitations are routine in Saudi Arabia, America’s closest Arab ally, for crimes including political dissent—and the international press hardly seems to notice. In fact, since January [2014], 59 people have had their heads lopped off in the kingdom, where “punishment by the sword” has been practiced for centuries. ...

It’s a mystery why the U.S. and the European Union, which strongly support the regime in Saudi Arabia, with its vast oil wealth and strategic and military importance, do not publicly condemn the country for its grisly, medieval public executions. In September, Secretary of State John F. Kerry was in Saudi Arabia, meeting with Arab diplomats when setting up the coalition against the Islamic State, commonly called ISIS. Human rights violations were not mentioned.

But there is a clear double standard. Iran, for example—Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical rival in the Middle East—is often cited by politicians such as Senator John McCain for gross human rights violations. But Iran, part of what President George W. Bush called “an axis of evil,” has, in fact, a far more democratic political process than Saudi Arabia.

So why the blind eye when it comes to Saudi Arabia? ISIS beheadings are repugnant, but the Saudis’ beheadings are ignored. “There seems to be a disconnect between Saudi Arabia’s condemnation of the practices of the Islamic State and the kingdom’s own state-sanctioned practices,” says Lina Khatib of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

Yet for economic reasons, the US continues to do deals with the devil. However, we can't be friends with Russia, a country which, far from espousing American values, doesn't have as its core value the destruction of western civilization! In the negotiations leading up to the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia was promised that NATO wouldn't encroach on Eastern Europe, but that is precisely what NATO has done. According to the LA Times:

In early February 1990, U.S. leaders made the Soviets an offer. According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation on Germany, U.S. could make “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.” Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion.

So Putin has a point. Crimea was historically part of Russia from 1783, when the Tsarist Empire annexed it a decade after defeating Ottoman forces in the Battle of Kozludzha, until 1954, when the Soviet government transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Clearly, Crimea and Ukraine are in the Russian sphere of influence. Where was the hue and cry when the US toppled governments in South America? Henry Kissinger is today sought by courts in Argentina, Chile, Spain, France and several other countries to answer questions about his role in plotting military coups that toppled Latin American governments and in aiding military regimes that carried out massive and criminal repression. He cannot travel abroad without first receiving guarantees that he will not be extradited.

Mikhail Gorbachev writing recently in Time magazine said, "Today, however, the nuclear threat once again seems real. Relations between the great powers have been going from bad to worse for several years now. The advocates for arms build-up and the military-industrial complex are rubbing their hands." Yet the neocons in the US defense establishment seem hell bent on starting another Cold War with Russia instead of cooperating with them to wipe out ISIS.

Iran, which also has Sharia law, at least has some sort of judicial system, unlike Saudi Arabia where the beheadings come about from what the West would consider to be rather arbitrary and capricious circumstances. Beheadings are even the half time entertainment at soccer games. Russia and the US would no doubt agree that ISIS is a terrorist organization and should be wiped out. Beyond that it's a question of who is allied with whom when it comes to defining who is a terrorist nation or not. The preponderance of evidence in my opinion indicates that the US is more concerned with its strategic military alliances and the continuance of the dollar as the world's reserve currency than with being on the side of moral propriety.

A survey taken by the Saudi intelligence service of "educated Saudis between the ages of 25 and 41" shortly after the 9/11 attacks "concluded that 95 percent" of those surveyed supported Bin Laden's cause. A 2002 Council on Foreign Relations Terrorist Financing Task Force report found that: “For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al-Qaeda. And for years, Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem.” So why have we made Iran the pariah and Saudi Arabia our friend? The answer is found in oil and dollars.

Nixon Took the US Off the Gold Standard

In 1971 President Nixon took the US off the gold standard. That meant that anyone holding dollars could not convert them into gold. In its place he talked the Saudi kings into pricing oil only in dollars. That meant any country wanting to buy oil from the Saudis or OPEC would have to purchase the oil with dollars and not with their native currency. In return the Saudis were given US military protection. During that era the US built and administrated numerous military academies, navy ports and Air Force military airbases. Also the Saudis purchased a great deal of weapons that varied from F-15 war planes to M1 Abrams main battle tanks that later proved useful during the Gulf War. The Saudis became the number one buyer of US military equipment with the money that piled up from the so-called "petrodollars."

On October 20, 2010, U.S. State Department notified Congress of its intention to make the biggest arms sale in American history – an estimated $60.5 billion purchase by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In addition to making US defense contractors rich, the Saudis and other oil producing nations bought US Treasury bonds. This allowed the US to go into massive debt secure in the knowledge that there would always be a ready supply of dollars that needed to be reinvested in the US. This arrangement of oil for dollars, which were then recycled into US military equipment and Treasury bonds, vaulted the US dollar into the status of the world's reserve currency. Part of the reason for the US invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was Saddam's threat to sell oil in euros instead of dollars thus potentially upending US economic hegemony in the world.

Saudi Arabia Biggest Purchaser of US Military Equipment

In addition to the largest arms sale in American history,

Saudi Arabia was the top destination for U.S. arms in 2011–2015, purchasing 9.7 percent of U.S. exports. Recent sales approved by the U.S. State Department include Black Hawk helicopters worth a total of $495 million and Patriot Missiles worth $5.4 billion, as well as a $1.3 billion sale of air-to-ground munitions meant to replenish stocks used in Yemen. That has drawn criticism from human rights groups and a couple of U.S. lawmakers, who have cited the high civilian toll of the Saudi-led air campaign. Saudi Arabia's total arms imports increased by 275 percent over 2006–2010, according to the research organization SIPRI (PDF). The United States also helps Saudi Arabia secure its oil assets by providing training and advisers to Saudi security forces.

But the US-Saudi alliance has shown signs lately of cracking. Upon becoming regent in 2005, King Abdullah's first foreign trip was to China. In 2012 a Saudi-Chinese agreement to cooperate in the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes was signed. Abdullah also welcomed Russian president Vladimir Putin to Riyadh in 2007, awarding him the kingdom's highest honor, the King Abdul Aziz Medal. Russia and Saudi Arabia concluded a joint venture between Saudi ARAMCO and LUKOIL to develop new Saudi gas fields.

After 9/11 the Saudis did not cooperate with Americans wanting to look at background files of the hijackers or interview the hijackers' families. In September 2016, despite the objections of the Obama administration, the Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that would allow relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for its government's alleged role in the attacks. The Saudis immediately threatened to dump $750 billion of US securities. Since President Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. has sold $110 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia. Have they got us by the balls?

The US invasion of Iraq and support of regime change there was allegedly to promote democracy. Iraq was ruled by a minority Sunni administration while the majority of the people were Shiites. So in a democratic election one would expect that Iraq would become ruled by Shiites. A major contradiction developed here when the US realized that Iran, who we made a pariah, is a majority Shiite country which actually has sent troops to fight alongside the Shiite Iraqis. Meantime, our ally, Saudi Arabia, Iran's arch enemy, is majority Sunni. Of course, they wouldn't fight to install or maintain a Shiite regime in Iraq. ISIS which is trying to take over Iraq is Sunni and is being supported by our friend, Saudi Arabia. So exactly who are the terrorists here and whose side are we on?

In Syria the situation is reversed. The Assad regime is Shiite while the majority of Syrians are Sunnis. The Obama administration was so confused with its policy of regime change which played into the Syrian civil war which led to massive killings and property destruction that it took the Russians to step in and try to put an end to the war without the help or cooperation of the US. They seem to be gaining ground in that regard although it's not over yet. So the US is faced with the irony of perhaps supporting terrorism or at least the major exporter of it, Saudi Arabia, while at the same time trying to fight terrorism. So what is terrorism? It depends whose side you're on and what strategic affiliations you have.

Egypt, a Major Recipient of US Money

Following the peace treaty with Israel, between 1979 and 2003, the US has provided Egypt with about $19 billion in military aid, making Egypt the second largest non-NATO recipient of US military aid after Israel. In 2009, the US provided military assistance totaling $1.3 billion and an economic assistance of $250 million. Israel and Egypt are the two largest non-NATO recipients of US aid, and are, therefore, major non-NATO allies of the US. Egypt is the strongest military power on the African continent, and according to Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' annual Middle East Strategic Balance, the second largest in the Middle East, after Israel.

So we have bought Israel a friend. We need to continue to pay for whatever friends we have in the middle east, but that does not mean that Egyptian citizens are our friends. Witness the Louvre attacker.

Military cooperation between the U.S. and Egypt is probably the strongest aspect of their strategic partnership. General Anthony Zinni, the former Commandant of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), once said, "Egypt is the most important country in my area of responsibility because of the access it gives me to the region." Egypt was also described during the Clinton Administration as the most prominent player in the Arab world and a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. U.S. military assistance to Egypt was considered part of the administration's strategy to maintaining continued availability of Persian Gulf energy resources and to secure the Suez Canal, which serves both as an important international oil route and as critical route for U.S. warships transiting between the Mediterranean and either the Indian Ocean or the Persian Gulf.

It seems that US policy in the Middle East is all about oil and petrodollars. It's not about terrorism. Terrorism as defined by Sunnis is all about Shiites and vice versa. What is clear is that if the US wants to fight terrorism, it shouldn't be aligned with Saudi Arabia, but then, if that were to change the position of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, the result might be that the US would no longer be the world's economic and military hegemon.

Renewable Energy Threatens US Dollar Hegemony

If the US takes global warming seriously (which it will not under Trump) and renewables replace oil as the main energy source, the whole world financial order based on oil, petrodollars and the dollar as the world's reserve currency will change. The US will no longer be in the position of having oil purchased with US dollars because there will no longer be a huge demand for oil so there will be fewer petrodollars to be reinvested in the US in Treasury bonds and military equipment. So it's a question of whether we want to preserve the US as the world's hegemon with the dollar reigning supreme or do we want to save the earth from global warming which means that the world financial system will probably no longer be based on the dollar?

When fossil fuels are replaced with renewables, the earth will be better off, but will the US economy which will no longer be in the position of running huge national deficits? The market for US military equipment which is predicated on our allies purchasing stuff with petrodollars will collapse. At that point the second largest economy, China, which is also investing heavily in renewables will probably become the world's economic and military hegemon. Then the US will have nothing to lose by getting rid of fossil fuels and going full steam ahead with renewables. Politicians, realizing which side their bread is buttered on, will probably become converts to the cause of preventing global warming and the US-Saudi alliance will become a thing of the past. One thing is clear: the US, allied with the largest human rights violator on the planet, Saudi Arabia, should no longer lecture the rest of the world about human rights.

May 24, 2016

All indications are that our biggest buddy in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, was directly involved with the 9/11 hijackers, and what's more, exports its extreme form of Islam, Wahhabism, to al Qaeda, ISIS and other groups determined to wipe out the West and Western values. There are 28 pages of the 9/11 report that deal directly with the Saudi role that so far have not been released. They have been redacted because the US relationship with the Saudis would be in jeopardy if they were to be released.

Last week the US Senate passed a bill that would let families of US victims of 9/11 sue the Saudis if they were found to be responsible for 9/11. The Saudis have gone so far as to say that, if the bill became law, they would dump $750 billion worth of US Treasury bonds on the world market. That would blow up not only our relationship with the Saudis, but the world financial system which is predicated on the US dollar being the world's reserve currency and its being necessary for the purchase of oil. That's why other countries that buy oil on the world markets have to hold dollars.

We have been taught to love the Saudis and hate ISIS. Brutal beheadings are shown on the evening news carried out by ISIS. Yet we are never shown a beheading by the Saudis which happens all the time. They're just not videotaped, that's all. The Saudis operate under Sharia law just like ISIS does. A contractor told me recently of his time in Riyadh where the half time entertainment at soccer games was beheadings. Instead of a concert by Beyonce, they'd clear the soccer field, have a beheading or two, then bring back the players for the second half. That's their half time entertainment! Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015. Yet none of our public officials mention this fact. Beheading is the form of execution in Saudi Arabia, and, according to my friend, it can be for as trivial a peccadillo as embarrassing someone's daughter! After the beheadings the Saudis put the headless bodies on display by hanging them around the city.

The government of Saudi Arabia beheaded forty-seven people on terror charges in a single day at the start of 2016, in the kingdom’s largest wave of executions in more than three decades. Saudi schoolchildren are taught that beheading Christians, Jews and Shiites is just fine and dandy. And these are our so-called "friends" in the middle east!

Every woman in America and the West should be outraged by how the Saudis treat women. They aren't allowed to drive for starters. A hidden camera videotaped a woman being shoved to the ground in a supermarket, her groceries scattered all over the floor, simply because she got in the way of a man. Saudi dissidents secretly videotaped the Saudi religious police - the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, whose job it is to patrol the shopping malls and streets looking for transgressions, accosting a woman for wearing make-up. If they show a few strands of hair which are not covered up by their hijabs and burkas, they could be whipped. Western women rejoice, your lot in life, although not perfect, is vastly superior to your counterparts in the middle east.

President Nixon Sealed the Deal With King Faisal

The deal "oil for dollars" was made by none other that the "deal with the devil" boy, Richard Nixon, himself. In 1973 then President Nixon asked King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to accept only US dollars as payment for oil and to invest any excess profits in US Treasury bonds, notes, and bills. In exchange, Nixon pledged to protect Saudi Arabian oil fields from the Soviet Union and other interested nations, such as Iran and Iraq. It was the start of the deal with the devil. Here is the short version of the sick system we now operate under:

The short version of the story is that a 1970s deal cemented the US dollar as the only currency to buy and sell crude oil, and from that monopoly on the all-important oil trade the US dollar slowly but surely became the reserve currency for global trades in most commodities and goods. Massive demand for US dollars ensued, pushing the dollar's value up, up, and away. In addition, countries stored their excess US dollar savings in US Treasuries, giving the US government a vast pool of credit from which to draw.

That explains why the US has been able to run humongous deficits year after year. Other countries that need dollars are more than happy to park their money in dollar denominated US Treasury bonds. If the Saudis decide they don't want to play this game any longer, dump their $750 billion of US Treasuries and start accepting other currencies as payment for oil, other countries will start dumping their US Treasury bonds. At that point there won't be much of a market for US bonds, and the US might have to stop running deficits and pay as it goes.

So what happens when major countries of the world decide they can obtain oil through various agreements that don't require the US dollar? All that borrowed money that the US has been using and running up sky high national debts and deficits with will represent the chickens coming home to roost. The US won't be able to sell any more Treasury bonds in order to continue running up deficits. The world's reserve currency, the dollar, will have to share the stage with other reserve currencies which are now building up.

The world financial system, which gave the US all kinds of advantages over other countries, will be in disarray. The value of the dollar will collapse. But not to worry. The Fed can just print more dollars to pay off our creditors. That will last for a while but not for long. Eventually, after a long, hard night, the US will have to get its act together and pay as it goes, not dependent on credit from petrodollars. US world hegemony will be kaput. This will inevitably happen anyway as the world transforms from a dependency on fossil fuels and transitions to renewable forms of energy. The byproduct will be that the dollar will no longer be the world's reserve currency and the US deal with the devil will be moot.

The San Diego Connection

OK, let's bring this back to the present day and the aforementioned 28 pages that have been redacted from the 9/11 report. The Saudis don't want them ever to see the light of day because the Saudis were complicit in the 9/11 bombings. 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. Two Saudis that landed in San Diego before the bombings took place and later became hijackers were given financial support by high ranking members of the Saudi government.

Sources who have leaked some of the contents of the 9/11 report say that there is “incontrovertible evidence” gathered from both CIA and FBI case files of official Saudi assistance for at least two of the Saudi hijackers who settled in San Diego. There was a flurry of pre-9/11 phone calls between one of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego and the Saudi Embassy, and the transfer of some $130,000 from then Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar’s family checking account to yet another of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego.

Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked 9/11 and related al Qaeda cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office, says Bandar should have been a key suspect in the 9/11 probe.

“The Saudi ambassador funded two of the 9/11 hijackers through a third party,” Guandolo said. “He should be treated as a terrorist suspect, as should other members of the Saudi elite class who the US government knows are currently funding the global jihad.”

But Bandar held sway over the FBI.

After he met on Sept. 13, 2001, with President Bush in the White House, where the two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony, the FBI evacuated dozens of Saudi officials from multiple cities, including at least one Osama bin Laden family member on the terror watch list. Instead of interrogating the Saudis, FBI agents acted as security escorts for them, even though it was known at the time that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

“The FBI was thwarted from interviewing the Saudis we wanted to interview by the White House,” said former FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was involved in the investigation of al Qaeda and the hijackers. The White House “let them off the hook.”

So it's good ole Bush who lied us into the war in Iraq who knew good and well who the culprits were in the 9/11 attack, yet acted as their protector. He even flew members of the bin Laden family out of the country before bin Laden was even a suspect. “Even though American airspace had been shut down,” Sky News reported, “the Bush administration allowed a jet to fly around the US picking up family members from 10 cities, including Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston and Houston.” “Two dozen members of Osama bin Laden’s family were urgently evacuated from the United States in the first days following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington,” CBS reported.

Is this all starting to make sense? Republican President Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard, then made a deal with the Saudis so that all transactions for oil would have to be paid in dollars, then he and subsequent US Presidents used the enormous resulting credit and appetite for Treasuries to run up the US national debt. This was followed by President George W Bush's complicity in the 9/11 attacks by protecting the Saudis and letting Saudi officials and the bin Laden family off the hook instead of investigating them. Then, knowing full well who was responsible for 9/11, Bush went to war with a nation that was totally innocent of 9/11 and killed its leader thus unleashing chaos in the middle east culminating in the European refugee crisis. Finally, the cover-up was complete when the 28 pages were redacted during the Bush administration. The release of this information would probably not only implicate the Saudis but their best buddy, George W Bush, as well.

Last Tuesday the US Senate passed a bill that would let US citizens who were victims of 9/11 sue Saudi Arabia. President Obama has said that, even if the bill should pass the House, he would veto it. Why? Because he doesn't want to upset the world's financial apple cart. He doesn't want the Saudis dumping $750 billion worth of US Treasuries on the world market. He doesn't want the Saudis accepting Japanese yen and European euros in exchange for oil. He doesn't want the BRICS countries New Development Bank becoming a rival to the IMF and World bank. He doesn't want the US to lose its hegemony over the world economy. Finally, he doesn't want the US to have to live within its own means and pay its own debts.

December 03, 2015

American politicians including George W Bush and Barack Obama have ignored the fact that the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other and have been fighting for 1383 years. Their lack of knowledge and acceptance of that fact has led to their bungling and botching of Middle East policy. There are effectively two religions: Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam.

Understanding the religious composition of countries in the Middle East goes a long way toward explaining why certain countries are fighting other countries or are standing by doing nothing in the fight against terrorism. For instance, why won't Saudi Arabia fight ISIS? The answer is simple. They are both Sunnis. For the most part Sunnis won't fight Sunnis and Shiites won't fight Shiites. But they sure as hell will fight each other. Americans and the western world in general have just been snookered into getting involved in this mess, which has been going on for over 1000 years, starting with George W Bush's ill conceived and immoral invasion of Iraq.

Middle Easterners have long memories. They are fighting battles which started eons ago.This is from an article by Harold Rhode:

When Khomeini arrived in Iran in February 1979, one of the first statements he made to the media on the tarmac was that "he had come to rectify a wrong which took place 1400 years ago." Westerners thought this somewhat quaint and obviously irrelevant. All that interested them was what he had to say about the Shah, America, and Israel. To Westerners, especially Americans, who dismiss things that happened a few days ago, Khomeini mumbling about some event that took place centuries ago seemed irrelevant.

Middle Easterners, however, who never forget perceived wrongs, knew exactly what he was talking about. When the Muslim prophet Muhammad died in 632 CE, a fight broke out among the Muslims as to who would inherit the leadership of Islam. Those who supported their prophet's family eventually became known as the Shi'ites. Those who supported what might be labeled the "establishment" in Mecca became known as the Sunnis.

Rhode goes on to say, "Sadly, Middle Easterners culturally are unable bring themselves to 'let bygones be bygones' – a concept totally alien to Middle Eastern culture. Disputes therefore fester, then erupt when one side perceives the other as weak." And thanks to George W Bush, Americans are embroiled in a 1400 year old dispute involving also perceived grievances experienced in the years since then. Nothing will ever get accomplished until there is peace and reconciliation between the two branches of Islam: Sunni and Shia. And that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.

If Khomeini was intent on righting a wrong committed almost 1400 years ago, his long memory probably also extends back to the time when the US installed the hated Shah in power in Iran. Again it was all about oil. Iran had nationalized its oil fields under the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, until a US and UK backed coup d'état deposed Mosaddegh and brought back foreign oil firms. In August 2013 the CIA admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government."

Iran got rid of the Shah in the 1979 Islamic Revolution which replaced the US backed Shah with an Islamic republic under the Grand AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, supported by various leftist and Islamic organizations as well as Iranian students.

85% of all Muslims Are Sunnis

Iraq was a country ruled by a Sunni, Saddam Hussein, in which a majority of the people were Shiites. Potential conflict there? You bet. Saddam, however, kept the lid on this seething cauldron. Getting rid of him took the lid off. Syria has a government led by Bashar al-Assad who is an Alawite, a branch of Shia, who rules over a majority Sunni populace - just the opposite situation of Iraq.

85% of all Muslims are Sunnis. Sunnis are a majority in most Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, China, South Asia, Africa, most of the Arab World, and among Muslims in the United States (of whom 85–90% are Sunnis). The country with the highest Shiite population is Iran which is 90% Shia. Naturally, Iran supports Assad, a fellow Shia. Make sense?

American leaders, who don't want to admit the fact that Islam is essentially two religions, fall into the trap of making statements like "ISIS has killed more Muslims than Christians." Yeah, Shiite Muslims. Very few Muslims identify as "just a Muslim" or generic Muslims like American Presidents like to talk about. So ISIS naturally wants to wipe out the Shiites and establish a Sunni Caliphate. If the US had its way and got rid of al-Assad, it wouldn't take long for ISIS to add southern Syria to its Caliphate. They already control northern Syria.

The attackers on 9/11 were Sunnis; the attackers in Paris were Sunnis. Let's be clear about who the terrorists really are, and they are not Shiites. That certainly does not mean that all Sunnis are terrorists.

Getting Rid of Bashar al-Assad Would be as Disastrous as Getting Rid of Saddam Was

How does this relate to what is happening in Syria now and America's role in it? Hezbollah (Iran's proxy) and Iran are naturally supporting Bashar al-Assad because they don't want a Sunni takeover of Syria. Who is America supporting? Sunnis of course. And who are the ISIS fighters who occupy parts of northern Syria? They are Sunnis. When American politicians talk about getting Muslims to put troops on the ground to take out ISIS, who do they think those troops are going to be?

Not Saudi Arabians who are Sunnis and who have supported Wahhabism, an extreme sect that has spawned terrorism. For more than two centuries, Wahhabism has been Saudi Arabia's dominant faith. Wahhabism has been accused of being "a source of global terrorism", inspiring the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and for causing disunity in Muslim communities by labeling Muslims who disagreed with the Wahhabi definition of monotheism as apostates (takfir), thus paving the way for their execution for apostasy.

George W Bush kowtowed and pandered to the Saudi princes because he lusted after their oil.The US has been on the side of not what is morally right but on the side of rich American oil corporations. Bush and others winked at their Wahhabist extremism, and they winked back when Bush ousted Sunni Saddam Hussein and supposedly liberated Iraqi Shiites. But it didn't work out that way. Instead Bush Jr opened a can or worms that metastasized into ISIS.

Yet the US sells arms to Saudi Arabia, and, despite its riches, it will do nothing to fight ISIS. Recently, the US State Department has approved the sale of $1.29 billion worth of bombs to Saudi Arabia, as its military carries out air strikes in neighboring Yemen. Why is Saudi Arabia fighting in Yemen's civil war? Because it doesn't want the country taken over by Houthis who are Shiite rebels. Simple as that. It is fighting Shiites to keep Sunnis in power.

Saudi Arabia is the center of the Sunni branch of Islam. It is also the center of the most violent and radical sect of Islam … the “Wahhabis”. But the U.S. has long supported the Madrassa schools within Saudi Arabia which teach radical Wahhabi beliefs.

Sunni extremists accounted for the greatest number of terrorist attacks and fatalities for the third consecutive year. More than 5,700 incidents were attributed to Sunni extremists, accounting for nearly 56 percent of all attacks and about 70 percent of all fatalities. Among this perpetrator group, al-Qaida (AQ) and its affiliates were responsible for at least 688 attacks that resulted in almost 2,000 deaths, while the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan conducted over 800 attacks that resulted in nearly 1,900 deaths.

I'll state it simply: The US is on the wrong side in Syria. Al-Assad was never a threat to US interests. ISIS is. The western world is waking up to that fact after the killings in Paris. Hollande and Putin and most of the Western World are now determined to wipe ISIS out. So where does Obama stand? He's backing off his position of getting rid of Assad slightly. The neocon policy of regime change has been a huge failure throughout the Middle East and before that in South America and elsewhere.

For instance, The election of Marxist candidate Salvador Allende as President of Chile in September 1970 led President Richard Nixon to order that Allende not be allowed to take office. Following an extended period of social, political, and economic unrest fomented by the CIA, General Augusto Pinochet assumed power in a violent coup d'etat on September 11, 1973; among the dead was Allende.

So now Obama is in the position of trying to save face by sticking to his position that Assad has to go, while Putin, Hollande and the rest of the Western World are aligned in their resolve to get rid of ISIS. You have to give Obama some credit for trying to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That was his game plan; it just didn't work out due to the ongoing struggle for power in the region. Where is Saddam when you need him?

Obama's support for Sunni moderates fighting Assad in Syria was never realistic. If they had been successful in removing al-Assad, they would have installed a Sunni government in Syria. How much time would have to pass after that before their fellow Sunnis, namely ISIS, would have taken over all of Syria? Not much, I think. Remember they already control a large part of it.

Who Will the "Boots on the Ground" Fighting ISIS Be?

Where are the Muslim troops that are going to be the "boots on the ground" that will fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq? On Meet the Press Leon Panetta suggested that the "boots on the ground" could be supplied by Saudi Arabia. Really? They who arguably spawned ISIS are going to take up arms against fellow Sunnis? I don't think so.

They won't be Sunnis, so let's assume they will be Shiites. Where will they come from? Our pals in Iran? Perhaps, but not under US leadership. Even more distasteful to American politicians than allying ourselves with Russia would be to ally ourselves with Iran. However, in a report by Lara Logan on 60 Minutes, it was pointed out that the only thing that has saved Iraq from being completely overtaken by ISIS is Iranian backed "boots on the ground" who naturally have had little if any support from the US.

Even more naive than Leon Panetta is John Kasich. His comprehensive plan to deal with ISIS would include "Arab forces." Which Arab forces, Mr. Kasich? Not Sunnis. Well, then, will it be our pals in Iran? He is proud to see many moderate Muslims willing to stand up and condemn the attacks in Paris. Well, who are these moderate Muslims. Are they the 5% who identify as "just a Muslim" and don't identify as either Sunni or Shiite?

Supposedly, according to Mr. Kasich, these moderate Muslims say that their religion has been hijacked. That doesn't square very well with the documented 1400 year hatred between Sunnis and Shiites. Of course, Sunnis would say it has been hijacked by Shiites and Shiites would say it has been hijacked by Sunnis. Remember there are hardly any generic Muslims, but these guys go on pretending that there are. Naivete abounds!

The US better get its act together and get on the right side of history. Putin has visited Iran recently and Russia and Iran are forming an alliance both to repel ISIS (which has proclaimed its enmity to Iran) and to cooperate economically and strategically. I'm afraid the US is being left on the sidelines as France, Russia and Iran take over the major responsibilities of fighting terrorism. In a way this is OK. Let someone else do the job that the US has fantastically bungled at this point.

In light of the deep seated hatred between Sunnis and Shiites, American political leaders should never again say that Muslims are by and large peace loving peoples. This negates the realities of the thousands of years of hatred and fighting between the two groups. Solving this conundrum would require getting the two branches of Islam to make peace with each other. According to Sunnis, Muslims are wonderful people, but they mean Sunni Muslims are wonderful people, and the opposite holds true for Shiites. So there's no lack of Muslims willing to say that Islam is a religion of peace and love, but they don't qualify it with "if it weren't only for those terrible Shiites (Sunnis)."

The US has supported the epicenter of Sunnis, Saudi Arabia, because supposedly we need their oil. Well, reality check, we don't need it any more. The US needs to convert away from oil and towards renewables to forestall the disaster of global warming but, as far as oil is concerned, the US is self-sufficient. The US needs to realign its Mideastern policy.

What we need is a coalition, a partnership among France, Russia, Iran and the US with France, Russia and Iran supplying the boots on the ground. America's role in that regard has a sorrowful legacy. Let someone else step up. The US doesn't have to be the "leader." The partnership should be equal with the military Chain of Command being comprised of officers from all four countries on a merit based basis.

Eliminating ISIS' nascent Caliphate in Syria and Iraq in terms of lands occupied, however, will not prevent them and others from pulling off Paris style attacks. Those attacks could just as easily have been planned and executed without any help from ISIS outside Europe. They were essentially homegrown European cells that then activated themselves. They were just taking a page out of American domestic terrorists' book (who have no political agenda).

September 29, 2015

Obama wanted it to be part of his legacy that he ended two wars, those in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were started by his predecessor, George W Bush along with his vice President Dick Cheney. Only it's not working out entirely as he planned, and he's coming in for a lot of criticism from, among others, Cheney himself. In a new book, Exceptional, Why the World Needs a Powerful America, written with daughter Liz Cheney, Cheney criticizes Obama while defending his own legacy. Cheney has been in full self-rehabilitation mode ever since he stepped down as George W Bush's brain.

The criticism now is that Obama left Iraq too soon and thus created a power vacuum that ISIS has filled. No doubt ISIS stepped into the vacuum created by the departure of Saddam Hussein, but the part that Cheney is missing is that his administration took out Saddam for no valid reason whatsoever and created the power vacuum in the first place. As long as Saddam was in power, no group such as al Qaeda or ISIS could possibly have gained a foothold in Iraq.

As Colin Powell said recently on Meet the Press, and I paraphrase, you can't take out the guy at the top if there is no structure beneath him to support a stable government and expect good results. Certainly neither George W Bush, who wanted to create western style democracies in the Middle East using war as a means, nor Barack Obama, who wanted to do the same thing by encouraging the youth to rise up after getting rid of despicable dictators, have achieved the results they were hoping for.

Powell also mentioned that all sixteen US Intelligence Agencies concurred in the fact that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction. It was a massive exercise in self delusion and self deception on a national basis and giving the Boss the results the Boss wanted because the agencies knew what the Boss wanted to hear. There was no integrity or ethics in the massive intelligence apparatus of the US government and the massive deception it perpetrated on the American public, not to mention the rest of the world.

Bush's perfidy was signaled two years before 9/11 when he told his ghostwriter that he wanted to be a wartime President:

HOUSTON -- Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade...if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow.

Sadam might have been a bad guy, but he was a bulwark against instability in Iraq. There is no way that al-Qaeda or ISIS could have gained a foothold there as long as Sadam was in power. Part of his effectiveness as a dictator is that he kept the religious tensions bubbling just under the surface in check. When Sadam was gone, religious factions came to the fore and destroyed Iraq's secularism under Sadam. Part of the problem is that no effective successor to Saddam has materialized, one who can put the lid back on the cauldron.

The only leaders of Iraq in the interim have been incompetent and ineffective. Obama has been too rosy in his assessment of the possibilities for reform in the Middle East. Perhaps a brutal Saddam-like leader is about the best they are capable of in those countries at the present time.

Obama encouraged young Egyptians to reform their country to become a democracy, and that too has been an abysmal failure. Egypt went from being controlled by the military through a couple of iterations, a couple of moves on the chess board, and back to being controlled by the military again despite the "Arab Spring," the youth revolt and the Internet. You can't blame Obama for trying to make a better world by relatively peaceful means.

Do Bad Dictators Serve a Useful Function?

The only problem is that that doesn't seem to be in the cards for some countries whether for historical or cultural reasons. Surely it's not for a lack of successful models including the US and the European Union, which despite their problems are still light years ahead as civilizations than the likes of Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. The simmering cauldrons of religious animosity and hatred boiled over once there was no strong and brutal leader to hold them in check. The key to modernizing these societies is first to secularize them.

In 2011 Obama pressured Mubarek to resign and encouraged the protesters, all to no subsequent avail. In a one on one conversation by telephone with Mubarak on February 1, Obama told the Egyptian president nearly point blank to resign, and Mubarak refused. Obama told Mubarak: “It is time to present to the people of Egypt it’s next government.” Mubarak replied: “Let’s talk in the next three or four days.”

Subsequent Egyptian governments were hamhanded and incompetent. The Muslim Brotherhood's government under Mohamed Morsi turned into a fiasco. Eventually, the military which had run Egypt for years stepped back in and ousted Morsi who found himself on death row while Mubarek who had been on death row got a reprieve. It's a topsy turvy world. So it's back to square one in Egypt with the military in control and no reforms evidently taking hold. The "Arab Spring" was a bust. It turned to winter pretty fast.

Despite Obama's peaceful intentions, as contrasted with Bush and Cheney's warlike ones, Obama's meddling in the middle East has had negative results. In Obama and Egypt’s Revolution Obama was quoted:

“It is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders. Only the Egyptian people can do that. What is clear—and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak—is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now.

“To the people of Egypt, particularly the young people of Egypt, I want to be clear: We hear your voices. I have an unyielding belief that you will determine your own destiny and seize the promise of a better future for your children and your grandchildren.”

It's clear Obama told Mubarek to leave and encouraged Egyptian young people to create a new society. Trouble was they didn't know how to do it. They weren't capable of doing it, and they had no historical or cultural precedents for doing it.

The Road to Hell by Good and Bad Intentions

Even in Libya, which was at least a stable country under Gaddafi, the lack of stability and power vacuum has been exploited by the likes of ISIS. The irony of the situation is that Gaddafi as well as Sadam were aging dictators who were mellowing toward the West. Obama's good intentions have led us down the road to hell just as resolutely as Bush and Cheney's nefarious ones. Now Cheney's advice somehow seems relevant again after attempts at reform in the Middle East have fallen flat. The road to hell has been paved with Obama's good intentions just as they were by his predecessor's bad intentions.

In fact, at the time of the 2011 NATO intervention, Gaddafi had made nice with the West, given up his nuclear weapons program, and was providing the United States good intelligence on Islamist terrorists. However, because Gaddafi had long been demonized, France and the United States just couldn't resist taking advantage of the Arab Spring revolt against him to get rid of him for good.

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Yet there are still people who argue that toppling Gaddafi was needed for the symbolic goals of standing with the NATO allies and siding with Arab Spring revolts, even though the latter didn't turn out to be very democratic after all. However, such symbolism is trumped by the harsh reality that, if anything, U.S. security has been eroded by Gaddafi's weapons being spread around the Middle East and by the resulting internal mayhem in Libya, which in turn has led to terrorist training bases and ISIS strongholds in that country. Even these developments could probably be overstated as threats to the United States per se, but security-wise the United States was still better off when Gaddafi kept things under control in Libya.

Another case in point is Syria. Obama took a stand that Bashar al-Assad had to go. He said that Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own people was a game changer. He had crossed a red line. "To use weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line in terms of international norms and laws," Obama told reporters in the Oval Office. In 2011 Obama called for al-Assad to resign after months of his violent crackdown on protesters. The rhetorical escalation was backed by new U.S. sanctions designed to undermine Assad’s ability to finance his military operation. Obama said there was a "red line" in Syria if al-Assad used chemical weapons. It was an empty threat.

“The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way,” Obama said in a written statement. “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Result: he's still in power and millions of Syrian refugees are risking death and besieging western Europe. Talk about good intentions backfiring. Hindsight is making Dick Cheney look good and seem relevant again.

President Obama first declared that it was time for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down in August, 2011, five months into the uprising against his rule. Since then, it’s been the consistently stated position of the White House that resolution of the civil war in Syria requires Assad’s departure. This has remained true even as the focus of America’s attention has shifted to Assad’s enemy, ISIS, and as worsening chaos in Libya and Yemen have led many to reconsider the wisdom of overthrowing dictators in countries riven by sectarian violence.

As long as Sadam was in power in Iraq, Mubarek in Egypt and Gaddaffi in Libya there was no power vaccuum and the liklihood of an ISIS like movement being successful was nil. The fact that al-Assad is still in power in Syria is cold comfort due to the fact that the civil war in that country has destabilized it and created millions of refugees. In the world today there are some 50 million refugees many of them barely clinging to life. It's a worldwide crisis, and a crisis for western Europe because they're all determined to get there in order to have a chance at a sane, useful and happy life.

The Arab Spring Was a Total Bust

As of September 2012, governments have been overthrown in four countries: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. The Arab Spring came to nought. All the demonstrations in Tahir Square, all the high hopes and ambitions for a better life, all the sophisticated use of the internet to organize young people, all the Facebook - it all came to nothing despite Obama's encouragement. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.

The Arab Spring was supposed to bring peace, democracy and stability to not only the nations where it took root, but also others around it in the Middle East and North Africa. It was supposed to usher in an end of violence and heavy-handed government tactics, just like it ushered out entrenched leaders. In short, it was supposed to mean a brighter future.

Not more instability, not more violence, not fewer freedoms.

But that's what happened, even if the level of unrest hasn't been even or universal. Some countries, such as Jordan, instituted reforms without really roiling their societies. Others, such as Iraq, never saw a popular uprising, but have seen burgeoning violence. And now, Yemen is on the brink of civil war as it battles a rebel group that has overthrown the government and seized parts of key cities.

And now Cheney's new book gives him the chance to say "I told you so." Forget about the fact that he and Bush started the whole thing with the removal of Saddam.

Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College is the author of several books, including "Arab Spring, Libyan Winter" and, most recently, "The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South."

There’s a very dangerous game going on here, both from Hillary Clinton, from the Republicans, from Tony Blair. They want to make the case that the Islamic State is a child of the Syrian war. They want to deny the fact that the Islamic State has its roots fundamentally in the destruction of the Iraqi state by the American invasion in 2003. You know, it’s very easy to destroy a state. It took the Iraqi people over a hundred years to build institutions; that was destroyed by the Americans in an afternoon.

Once you destroy the state, you create a vacuum. For the first time on Iraqi soil, one saw al-Qaeda groups come in, and that was in 2004, when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was a Jordanian militant, comes into Tal Afar and creates al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. You know, even bin Laden found him to be a bit unpalatable, because he was deeply sectarian and extraordinarily violent. The Americans tried to crush al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, but by 2006, despite the big surge, despite the bombing of Fallujah, Ramadi—you know, names that the American public now are quite familiar with—despite the razing of these cities, the Islamic State was born in 2006. It’s not yesterday’s creation. This was a product of the Iraq War.

The roots of ISIS were created when George W Bush destroyed the Iraqi state. It was helped along when Obama told Mubarek and al-Assad to step down and got rid of Gaddafi.

In his book Cheney says, “Those who say the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a mistake are essentially saying we would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power". Well yes, the world would be immeasurably better off if Bush and Cheney had never invaded Iraq and Sadam was still in power. Bush and Cheney had to make their case as strong as possible that Sadam was a threat to the world because he possessed weapons of mass destruction.The real reason is that Bush lusted after being a wartime President with all the "political capital" that would accrue to him.

Regarding Bush the road to hell was paved with bad intentions. As far as Obama is concerned the road to hell was paved with good intentions. Both led to similar results. Removing bad guy dictators created a power vacuum, destabilized several middle Eastern countries and led to the rise of ISIS. We would all be better off if the bad guys had remained in place. The US has been directly responsible for destroying billions of dollars worth of real estate, killing over a million people, mostly civilians, ruining millions of people's lives forcing them into refugee status and destabilizing Europe because of it. This does not even count the hundreds of billions of dollars the US military-industrial complex has spent on war and the weapons of war, money that has not been spent on creating peace around the world and taking care of pressing social and infrastructure problems at home.

The US has sown acrimony and tension in the Middle East thus insuring resentment towards the US and the west and continued war for the next hundred years unless the US immediately apologizes, turns away from spending billions on war and instead puts that money into peace building efforts in the Middle East. Money should be transferred from the war machine to the Peace Corps and similar efforts. But US war efforts sustain a self-fulfilling prophecy guaranteeing that the military will have to be used ad infinitum to tamp down the tensions and resentments that it has created in the first place. All those making money off of war should be delighted.

The problem is that Obama is still in the thrall of the neocons whose mantra is regime change. Robert Parry in How Neocons Destabilized Europe has nailed it: "The neocon prescription of endless “regime change” is spreading chaos across the Middle East and now into Europe, yet the neocons still control the mainstream U.S. narrative and thus have diagnosed the problem as not enough “regime change.”"

The refugee chaos that is now pushing deep into Europe – dramatized by gut-wrenching photos of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey – started with the cavalier ambitions of American neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks who planned to remake the Middle East and other parts of the world through “regime change.”

Instead of the promised wonders of “democracy promotion” and “human rights,” what these “anti-realists” have accomplished is to spread death, destruction and destabilization across the Middle East and parts of Africa and now into Ukraine and the heart of Europe. Yet, since these neocon forces still control the Official Narrative, their explanations get top billing – such as that there hasn’t been enough “regime change.”